I. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to inter-program communication, and more particularly to apparatus in the form of a control program which provides application programs with the ability to communicate with each other, control each other and to share the communications hardware through a common driver while providing a uniform interface to the user.
II. Discussion of the Prior Art
Personal computers based upon the Intel 8.times.86 family of micro-processors, also known as IBM PCs or IBM compatible PCs, are the dominant standard for personal computing. The continuing popularity of this standard is due principally to the relatively low hardware cost plus the availability of a large body of applications software written to operate with a specific Disk Operating System (DOS) known as MSDOS which is sold by Microsoft Corporation. MSDOS, as with any operating system software, provides a prescribed environment for the operation of application programs. While the term MSDOS literally refers the software sold by Microsoft Corporation, it is frequently construed to include the Basic Input-Output System (BIOS) program contained in the Read-Only-Memory contained in any IBM compatible PC. Hereafter the term MSDOS will be used to mean the standard operating system, including the BIOS, of an IBM compatible personal computer generally conforming to the MSDOS (version 3.0 or later) protocol. Persons skilled in the art will be knowledgeable of the structure and mode of operation of MSDOS, but those desiring further background are referred to the detailed description of MSDOS found in a publication entitled "Advanced MSDOS" by Raymond Duncan, Microsoft Press, Copyright 1988.